In Tearing Haste

by Patrick Leigh Fermor

  The little sister was a great botanist, and completely won me by her high spirits and charm.’ [1]

  All right, eh?

  Love,

  Paddy

  [1] Carrington: Letters and Extracts from her Diaries, edited by David Garnett ( Jonathan Cape, 1970), p. 473. Lytton Strachey and Carrington at Ham Spray were neighbours of DD’s sister Diana and her first husband, Bryan Guinness, when they lived at Biddesden Manor in Wiltshire.

  15 January 1983

  Chatsworth

  Bakewell

  Darling Paddy,

  I’m going to Houghton [1] tomorrow, to shoot on Monday. Sybil is 89 this month. I haven’t seen her for two years. How mad when in the nature of things she can’t go on forever. One ought to make monthly appointments with people like her.

  John Pearson’s history of the Cavendish family is very bad. [2] Isn’t it a waste of a good subject. Journalese I think it’s called, sarcastic, generally narky. It reads as if he hated writing it, a schoolboy forced to do a boring essay. What a pity. He is so nice. I can’t think why he had to write it like that.

  Must stop & get my hair done for Sybil.

  Much love

  Debo

  [1] Houghton Hall; the Marquess of Cholmondeley’s Palladian house in Norfolk.

  [2] Stags and Serpents: A History of the Cavendish Family and the Dukes of Devonshire (1983) was generally well received.

  ? February 1983

  c/o Wife, Bignor Park

  Darling Paddy,

  Do note the enclosed. [1] He is obviously a terrific fan of yours.

  I wrote to say how I’d loved the comp. & how you were panting for the results.

  Now I want him to have a comp. inspired by Decca cheating the American telephone people out of paying, it goes like this: –

  If you put a personal call in America & the fellow you want isn’t available you don’t pay. Right. She was in New York. Bob [Treuhaft] was in Calif. Their dog, Coco, went missing. She was worried to death till the phone rang & the operator said ‘I have a person to person call for Mr Coco Isback.’ ‘Sorry he’s out & can’t take the call,’ she said but happiness set in & all for nothing. Of course it’s easier in America where outlandish names are normal. I mean what a hope of persuading an English tel operator of a Coco Isback.

  Much love

  Debo

  [1] The enclosed letter has not been found.

  18 March 1983

  Mani

  IN FEARFUL HASTE

  Darling Andrew,

  This is just a brief note to say I’m putting together a book of odds and ends – including our Peruvian Adventure [1] – and I’m going to dedicate it to you and Debo. I wanted to dedicate one to each of you, sometime. But then I may be run over by an Athenian tram, or topple over a cliff, with the thing dedicated to no one, so this is better than that.

  All the best, dear Andrew,

  Yours ever

  Paddy

  [1] Three Letters from the Andes.

  10 April 1983

  Chatsworth

  Bakewell

  Darling Paddy,

  Well, a book dedicated to Andrew & me. What a wonder. Never heard of such a thing, & never was more flattered, pleased, proud, boastish, anything. Can’t wait.

  I might learn to read in honour of the honour.

  I can’t get over it, & await the day of publication as keenly as good old Jock Murray.

  Decca & Bob land in London next week. Lucky them, going to you. She’s got an attack of nerves re her P Toynbee [1] so do soothe it down. Very unlike her, she usually bulldozes along I should have thought. I bet it’s good.

  Diana’s chapter on Carrington & Strachey [2] is IT. Quite a different view of them to any one has ever read before.

  Jim Lees-Milne [3] is writing a life of Ld Esher, the one who was Sec to the 8th Duke of Devonshire. He has turned up some rich tales of that marvellous man.

  Much love & so many thanks for being on the 1st page of yr Book. What an excitement. From

  Debo

  [1] Jessica Mitford was writing a memoir of Philip Toynbee, published as Faces of Philip in 1984.

  [2] Diana Mosley included a chapter on Dora Carrington and Lytton Strachey in Loved Ones: Pen Portraits (1985).

  [3] James Lees-Milne (1908–97). Architectural historian, biographer and diarist, who was ‘now and then exaggeration prone’. (PLF) Author of The Enigmatic Edwardian (1986), a life of Viscount Esher, writer and politician, who had a fondness for adolescent boys. Married Alvilde Chaplin in 1951.

  20 June 1983

  Mani

  Darling Debo,

  I set off for New York with my old Cretan guide and pal, Manoli Paterakis, [1] a glorious chap with eagle-brows and blazing eyes and very funny, who rarely leaves his goat-folds high up in the mountains of Western Crete, a man in a million. The pilot turned out to be an old friend too, so we were spirited into the super-luxury class and given masses of champagne, caviar and foie gras. Lots of Cretans met us at Kennedy Airport, and we were whisked off to a distant green corner of Long Island almost exclusively inhabited by them, and made a tremendous fuss of. We stayed with our old head of intelligence in Heraklion, a brilliant student then, now a successful inventor: [2] he’s perfecting an internal combustion engine which will reduce fuel consumption to 10% of its present amount, so he’ll probably be a billionaire. The whole thing was to mark the 42nd anniversary of the Battle of Crete, and M and I were the guests of honour.

  Endless interviews and TV broadcasts culminated, the first Sunday, in a great gathering in a vast hall called the Crystal Palace on Broadway, where we were on a dais with an Orthodox bishop and other celebrities, and all made speeches, including me (not a dry eye) and Manoli, who rambled on splendidly about shooting parachutists among the rocks. Feasting followed, and marvellous Cretan dancing, the leaders twirling in mid-air, smacking their boots thrice before landing, to the strains of the lyra and other Cretan instruments; marvellous costumes. It all sounds as if it might have been hell, but it wasn’t, because of the warmth, kindness and enthusiasm of all concerned. V moving in fact. (By the end, we were laden with engraved gold and bronze plaques, and framed documents like those above psychiatrists’ couches in the New Yorker, explaining how we had each won the war single-handed, and lots of other lovely presents.) The next weekend, the whole troop flew to Toronto, where the same happened. We were seized and hugged by the son of Father John Alevizakis [3] (see Joan’s pictures in Cretan Runner, [4] if handy – also of Manoli), fed and housed by him and driven to Niagara, where we gazed marvelling through the spray. Managed to slip away to the centre of New York for several days, and put up at a rather nice shabby-genteel place called the Royalton, on W 44th Street, bang opposite the much grander and more famous Algonquin, which was used for breakfast and last drinks; but we had to chuck this, as the waiters were from Macedonia and Samos and, knowing our mugs from the local Greek press, we weren’t allowed to pay for drinks, and finally slunk off elsewhere for fear of ruining them. How nice to devote almost an entire letter to boasting. We got back after a fortnight, tired but happy.

  I enjoyed goatherd Manoli’s calm acceptance of skyscrapers etc. (His only other absence from his native ranges was ten years ago. We were flown to Paris for a TV Resistance programme, and they put us up in a charming place called l’Hôtel Château Frontenac, near the Étoile. M’s suite had three thicknesses of lace curtain, panels of green pleated watered silk like your study, pastel-colour reproductions of Boucher and Fragonard – Le Baiser à la dérobée, l’Escarpolette etc – great brass beds and taps like golden swans’ necks. I asked him what he thought of it and he said ‘Very nice.’)

  No more now, darling Debo, except tons of love (and news, please,) from

  Paddy

  [1] Cretan resistance fighter and a chief participator in the abduction of General Kreipe in 1944.

  [2] George J. Doundoulakis (1921–2007). Second World War espionage hero and physicist.

  [3]
The village priest of Alones, a small village in south-west Crete, where PLF set up a wireless station during the war. His son, George Alevizakis, served in the Royal Hellenic Air Force before moving to Toronto after the war.

  [4] George Psychoundakis, The Cretan Runner: His Story of the German Occupation (1955). PLF translated and wrote an introduction to the book, which included over a dozen photographs of the participants by Joan Leigh Fermor.

  11 August 1983

  Bolton Abbey

  Skipton

  Darling Paddy,

  Spent two days filming with a wonder called Penelope Keith. [1] Did you ever see her on the telly, To The Manor Born, The Good Life etc, no acting necessary, she’s exactly like she is & perfect with an even more exaggerated voice than all Mitfords put together.

  The subject of her interview was v unexpected – Capability Brown. The director had to tell us to stop laughing once or twice, that’s never happened before. It’s usually stop yawning. Anyway I spoke my mind about how he buggered up our garden & how thankful I was he hadn’t stopped up the river to make a soggy old lake (a miracle he didn’t, now I come to think of it, a favourite trick of his), so I hope it won’t be too dull. Couldn’t be with her. Her hubby is v Lancashire & talks same, he’s a copper on the beat in Chichester. Next time I stay with the Wife I shall Break & Enter there in the hopes of being apprehended by him. He’s lovely.

  Now it’s a spot of sport, no grouse because of ghoul wet & cold in April & May, so we’ll pay attention to the picnics instead & Prince Philip is coming next week. What a shame he’s hit a dud year after last year’s bonanza.

  The wedding of Catherine Guinness to Ld Neidpath [2] was too lovely, at Biddesden, all glowing pink brick on a boiling evening, a dance after, all out of doors, so rare not to be frozen at night.

  My Diana hadn’t been in the house since she left 50 years ago & nor has a housemaid by the looks of it, but oh the beauty of the bones of the place.

  An aged American fell in love with Diana & followed her about & I heard his wife say ‘I might as well take to drink & go back to New York.’ She’d done the first alright. I WISH Ann had been there, she ought to have come out of wherever she is for the night.

  Andrew is wonderfully well, ne’ery a refresher, consequently in marvellous form & the best of all companions.

  V much love & to Joan

  Debo

  [1] Penelope Keith (1940–). Actress famous for roles in television series and a keen gardener. Married to Rodney Timson in 1978.

  [2] DD’s great-niece was married to James Neidpath 1983–8.

  *

  (DD)

  In February, I wrote a harrowing letter to Paddy about an incident which precipitated the inevitable physical crisis in Andrew, brought on by his alcoholism. It was after the annual journey to Lismore for the opening of the salmon-fishing season on the Blackwater.

  Even this traumatic experience failed to persuade him to take action. Not until the end of June did he seek treatment as a way out of the desperate affliction that affects not just the sufferers but so many people around them. With this help and a huge effort of will Andrew remained sober for the rest of his life.

  It was not his first attempt at giving up. In his memoirs he wrote, ‘I made periodic attempts to give up alcohol for varying lengths of time, from a few months to a time in the ’70s when I gave up for two years, as the result of some drastic electric treatment.’ This did not have the hoped-for effect and it was not until this year that he conquered what he called the ‘old enemy’.

  6 February 1984

  Chatsworth

  Bakewell

  Darling Paddy,

  I’ve had two excitements. The first was being asked to shoot at Sandringham [1] & studying the house for the first time, & the second was Sybil Cholmondeley’s 90th birthday party.

  Sandringham was built about the same time as Batsford [2] & smells just like it, it NEEDS palms & glut but has been cleared of same. * It’s got a wonderful atmosphere & makes one feel dangerously at home straight away.

  My bathroom had three marble basins with letters engraved into them. The first said HEAD & FACE ONLY, the next HANDS, & good heavens the last was blank so what can it have been for.

  I picked up a hoof, off Andrew’s writing table, with Persimmon (Derby winner FOOL) written on it, turned it over to see if it had a golden shoe & an awful rare liquid poured out all over EVERYTHING – ink. How could I guess. I wrecked Andrew’s sponge trying to wash the carpet & had to give up as the horrible beige thing was turning blacker & bluer every minute so I rang for the maid & fled. Two hours later there was no sign of the dread accident, aren’t those sort of professionals amazing?

  Then back to Norfolk a week later, to Houghton for Sybil’s 90th birthday. I was so honoured to be asked, the other two non family staying in the house were Sir Steven Runciman [3] & Gp Captain Cheshire VC, [4] a bit more distinguished than yours truly, plus two non favourites of mine Elie & Liliane Rothschild. [5] The last communication I had with her was to write an incredibly rude letter about Pryce-Jones’ foul book, I can’t quite remember why I wrote it, must have been provoked but can’t remember what by. More than just the book no doubt.

  Part of the fun was arriving the day before the great dinner & watching it coming to without a speck of responsibility. Lavinia [6] & Nini [7] (do you know her, Sybil’s daughter, polio when young, lame, charming, probation officer) were doing the names for the tables. Six tables of eight. I heard them muttering Give me the Dss of Kent. No that won’t do, where’s Pss Alexandra? The result was a triumph, everyone pleased with their place, even though I had Elie, famous for rudeness, but tamed by the awesome fact of the whole of the royal family being dangerously near so he was positively polite.

  You simply can’t imagine the beauty of it all. That staggering Stone Hall set up for such an entertainment made me think I should never see anything so beautiful again, gold plate dug from the cellar by D Rocksavage, [8] orchids on every shelf because the present-givers mostly plumped for flowers & somehow Sybil IS orchids, daffs wouldn’t do, Sèvres china and the room itself, decorated & yet hardly because of it all being one colour viz. stone. Oh heavens it was wonderful.

  All their old servants came out of cotton wool to do the job & do it they did most wonderfully.

  Cake wore something shimmering as per, Pss Alexandra a terrific tartan thing in silk with huge sleeves, Dss of Kent came dressed as a clergyman – black silk with white collar & cuffs – we all made a monster effort, jewels galore &, a rare thing, there was exactly the right number of people.

  Surrounded by the Oudry White Duck, many a Gainsborough, Sybil’s mater by Sargent, the Holbein of a squirrel & ‘my brother Philip’s Things’ [9] positively gaudy among the indigenous Kent kit, French clocks surrounded by sort of diamonds, eastern this & that, all one size too small but adding a lot, the royal people, seven minutes of block busting non-stop fireworks seen through the fat glazing bars & the old glass which is full of swirls & distortions, fires & flowers everywhere. Oh do try & picture the scene. SHE wore a pink cut-velvet & satin dress made for her mother in 1901.

  The Duke of Grafton said some good words after dinner, & she, swearing after that she had no inkling anyone was going to do that, answered most brilliantly. She quoted from Horace Walpole something about dowagers being as common as flounders [10]

  (‘What are these flounders?’ Elie asked) – nothing could have been better.

  The fact that the Queen & all the rest of her push were there made the dreamlike feeling more so. Those rooms were made for all that & so was Sybil. I kept thinking how lucky I was to be there. I WISH you had been & all other appreciators of such rare fare.

  Two sad funerals this week to bring one down to earth as it were. Our v.v. loved lawyer Tim Burrows only 56 & irreplaceable, & Sir Arthur Armitage, trustee of this dump & such a good fellow, ex vice Chancellor of Manchester University etc etc.

  Then to the Wife where we stay for Uncle Harold’s 90th
birthday party. I expect that will be the v. opposite of Sybil’s, it’s lunch in a tent.

  I’m sure there are 1000 other items but I must stop & get to work on a terrifying speech I’ve got to make on the thrilling subject of Redundant Farm Buildings ( just your subject I know) to the Royal Soc. of Chartered Surveyors, terrifying because they are all pros. Why did I say I’d do it. Mad.

  Much love

  Debo

  [1] DD was a guest of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh on their Norfolk estate.

  [2] Batsford Park in Gloucestershire was rebuilt by DD’s grandfather, Bertram Mitford, 1st Baron Redesdale, in the late nineteenth century. DD’s brother and older sisters lived there as children until it was sold to Lord Dulverton, Chairman of W. D. & H. O. Wills Tobacco, in 1919.

  [3] Steven Runciman (1903–2000). After an early falling out over PLF’s nocturnal excesses in Athens after the war, when Runciman was British Council representative and PLF was Deputy Director of the British Institute, they became lifelong friends. PLF greatly admired his books on the Crusades: ‘the skill of the writing, the vast range of his scholarship – even, here and there, the witty asides and brackets – called the name of Gibbon to many minds.’ Spectator, 13 January 2001.

  [4] Leonard Cheshire (1917–92). Air Force officer and founder of the Cheshire Homes for the disabled.

  [5] Liliane Fould-Springer (1916–2003). Art collector and philanthropist. Married Baron Elie de Rothschild, by proxy, in 1942. An aunt of David Pryce-Jones.

  [6] Lavinia Leslie (1921–). Married 6th Marquess of Cholmondeley in 1947.

  [7] Lady Aline Cholmondeley (1916–). Only daughter of 5th Marquess of Cholmondeley.

  [8] David Rocksavage, 7th Marquess of Cholmondeley (1960–). Hereditary Lord Great Chamberlain since 1990 and director of the film adaptation (1997) of Truman Capote’s first novel, Other Voices, Other Rooms (1948).